A Dolphin Tale at Clearwater Aquarium

On Tuesday, we drove back to Clearwater to check out their Aquarium. It's a rescue and rehabilitation aquarium, so all of the animals there have were injured or abandoned. The most famous animal there is Winter the Dolphin. She is the star of 'A Dolphin Tale'. She lost her tail in a crab trap and now lives at the aquarium. She swims great without it, but wears a prothetic tail for physical therapy sessions. The movie had many scenes shot there and has made this place extremely popular. When we first arrived, one of the volunteers let the girls hold Winter's prosthetic tail. This was #16 out of 18 tails she's owned.

The girls also got to pet sea urchins and sting rays! That was the girls' favorite activity. We hung out here two times.

Here's Winter. You can kind of see how her tail is missing. It was hard to get a picture of her since they didn't have underwater viewing.

Here's Nicolas...he washed ashore and got stuck. This poor guy suffered horrible sunburn and will forever have scars. This big guy can still splash though! He got us SOAKED!

Clearwater

I'm finally getting a chance to post about our three days in Florida after Disney. After 13 hours in Magic Kingdom, we drove to Tampa...poor Danny had to get up at 6:30 to work. Us girls went downstairs for a continental breakfast at the hotel (a favorite for the Dow girls!).

Then, after the Disney whirlwind all I wanted to do was lay around at the hotel, but we were in Florida! I had to take the kids to do something they couldn't do back in VA. So...we drove to Clearwater Beach. With hotel towels and a makeshift beach bag filled with snacks, we were off. I'm so glad we went...it was a beautiful beach day!

Here are the girls eating a snack. Just as I snapped the picture, a seagull swooped down and took Anabelle's food right out of her hand!

Ah....nothing like sweet salty air and white sand between the toes in November!

We Did It! We took the kids to Disney World!

Whoops...the pictures are backwards, but you get the idea :0). We had a great time on our two day whirlwind of Disney. On Saturday, we took the kids to Animal Kingdom after getting up at 3:30 am, stayed at the park until it closed, slept in a hotel in downtown Disney, woke up Sunday, got to Magic Kingdom right when it opened, caught the opening show before the rope drop, rode almost every ride in the park, and stayed to watch the fireworks show at closing. Then we drove an hour to our hotel in Tampa. Phew....it was exhausting, but VERY fun!!! Danny & I actually felt the magic...haha! We were so happy we could do this for our girls and we think they had a great time. Here are pictures of our trip~

Danny enjoying the 15 minutes we were stuck in the Buzz Lightyear ride. He almost got 1 million points...haha.

Castle during the day & at night~

Goofy's high five to Sadie!

My favorite show...Finding Nemo. These were puppets! Just amazing~

Elise & I rode Expedition Everest twice in a row. That's a roller coaster in Animal Kingdom.

Here's Mt Everest~

The Tree of Life. Beautiful~! Safari ride was a blast!

One Wet Halloween!

So this year we had a gypsy, a cheetah, and Minnie Mouse (since we were going to Disney!).

Sadly, it started to pour right at trick or treating time this year, but did it stop the Dow girls??? Why of course not! When there's candy involved, nothing will stop them!

Of course, it was a bit uncomfortable for the parents though and locking us out of the house didn't help. Whoops... that was my fault. Thankfully, with soaking feet and a chill to the bone, I returned to the house and on my 12th try managed to get the garage door keypad working again. I think it was a Halloween miracle :0).

Sadie Turns 6~!~!

Yes...it's been a few weeks, but I finally have pictures of Sadie's bday. Life has been a bit busy :0). This year, Sadie wanted an American Girl doll, so we told her that her celebration would have to be small. She asked a few friends to come over for a Pumpkin Painting Party which was easy and lots of fun! The following day was her actual birthday, so she waited until then to open up her family presents. After school was the moment she had been waiting for...to open the biggest box. Sure enough, inside she found the doll she wanted. A Just Like Me American Girl with brown hair to the shoulders and brown eyes. She was so excited!

Fall Bucket List :0)

Pumpkin Patch

On Sunday we took the kids to Chesterfield Berry Farm to enjoy the fall day. It was a little colder than we expected and the prices were outrageous, but we had a great time :0). Here are the girls throwing out their gang signs for the camera (I'm not sure where they learned that!).

This is Danny's new way of protesting his picture being taken. Ha ha...I got him anyway and in a small wagon no less :0).

This year we took on the corn maze. We made it through, but only by cheating and back tracking our way out. It was also helpful to have the girls hop on Danny's shoulders to see the exit.

My favorite stop was in the pumpkin patch. I love looking at all the different sizes and shapes of pumpkins. Anabelle & Sadie found their favorites fairly quickly. Elise on the other hand couldn't decide. At the last second, she chose the ugly bumpy one which was SUPER heavy!